


Drowning (Without You)

by ayerlind



Series: Drowning [1]
Category: Iron Man (Movies), Marvel (Movies)
Genre: Angsty Schmoop, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, and yet there is a distinct lack of alcohol, exercising some of my own headcanons, gratuitous clinging, vulnerable!Rhodey, vulnerable!Tony
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-11-27
Updated: 2012-11-27
Packaged: 2017-11-19 17:28:41
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,194
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/575795
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ayerlind/pseuds/ayerlind
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>IM1 post-Afghanistan, Tony and Rhodey face three months' worth of pent up emotions during a quiet moment together.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Drowning (Without You)

**Author's Note:**

> I have been overcome with Tony/Rhodey feelings lately, and most of them are angsty. I apologise in advance. Your feels are not safe here. While this part could be considered gen if you squint, part 2 will be equal parts less angsty and more naked. I took some liberties with military details and jargon because my military nitpicker is in fact overseas doing military things. And of course, neverending kisses to suspectedbooklegger, my beautiful beta.

When Jim was nervous, he paced.  
  
Over the last three months, he had gotten pretty good at it.  
  
As he walked it, back and forth, over and over, he could literally see the track in the plush blue rug in his office, a line of about six feet running diagonally from corner to corner, where for a few hours every single day he had paced, yelling or pleading into the phone, trying to organize just _one_ more search effort, or call in just _one_ more favor.  Where, for a few hours every single day, he would pour his everything into putting together S &R missions, because he was the _only goddamn one_ that didn't think that Tony was dead.  
  
Where, for a few hours every single day, he would do his damndest not to fall apart.  
  
Jim glanced up at a clock mounted on the wall of the dimmed office.  He had been pacing and thinking for eighteen minutes; he had another hour before the ceremony.  Rubbing his hands over his face and hair, Jim dropped down into his desk chair, which gave an abused hiss of compressed air as it sank beneath his weight.  
  
His head hung down, chin to chest, and he stared empty-eyed at his dress blues, not actually seeing anything past his own brain.  On autopilot, he straightened his tie, re-rolled his cuffs, dusted off his jacket. He remembered his numerous yelling matches with his superior officers (part of him couldn't believe that he still had a job), his final conversation with General Gabriel about his transfer, the side-eye glances that he got from his new S &R team as they flew grids over the endless desert for three days.  
  
He remembered the shock in the voice of the airman that had broken a two-hour silence, yelling over the sound of the chopper, "Trouble to the southwest! I see smoke!"  
  
He remembered the fear that he felt, completely unable to stop the image of Tony, dead or maimed and burning somewhere in that compound-turned-inferno from entering his head.  
  
He remembered the cold shock of absolute numbing relief when, as they flew toward the smoke, someone else had yelled, "Down below! On the dune! Colonel, I see someone!" and he knew before he even got up, he knew before he held on tight and leaned out the door while they were still fifty feet up and people were yelling at him to sit down or at least clip on a safety harness but he _knew_. He knew that everything was going to be okay.  
  
"Rhodey?"  
  
Jim was smiling before he even raised his head.  "Hey," he said.   
  
Tony strolled into the office, assuming that a greeting was just as good as an invitation, because that was just one of those things that Tony did that Jim found so infuriatingly charming.  He had on a dark blue suit that sort of complemented Jim's dress blues perfectly, a white shirt underneath it and a navy tie.  His right arm was still in a sling, which was also the exact same shade of dark blue, because when he was Greet-the-Public Tony those things mattered.  
  
Probably not to Tony himself, Jim figured.  More likely, they mattered to Pepper.   
  
It wasn't until Tony sat on his desk and kicked him gently in the shin and asked, "What's the matter, grumpy bear?" that Jim saw the concern behind the smile on his friend's face, and he knew how he must be looking.  Jim's automatic response was to force a smile and say that everything was fine, because that was his default these past three months; that was the response that had kept everyone at a bit of a distance while Tony was gone, because Jim knew that if someone got close enough, if they cared enough to break the surface of him that he would never be able to get it under control again, to convince himself that everything was going to be okay, and if that happened, if someone took that away from him, he didn't know if he would be able to recover.  
  
But when he looked up into the worried hazel eyes visible behind the flashy sunglasses, he remembered that he was with the _one_ person that wouldn't care if he showed an emotion every once in awhile.  He was safe with Tony, able to actually do and say the things that he actually felt without fear of judgment.  He could cry, he could yell, he could get drunk or get in a fight and Tony Stark would have his back.  
  
So why did that revelation bring a knot of grief into his chest?  Why was he having trouble forming words? Jim reached up and plucked the shades off of Tony’s face, toying with them as he lowered his eyes to the floor, feeling a rush of embarrassment at getting so choked up. Tony touched his face, two fingertips against his jaw to get him to look up.  “What’s wrong, honey?” he asked again, all teasing gone.  
  
"A lot," Jim answered honestly, voice raw and soft and just a little broken.  
  
Wordlessly, Tony slid down off of Jim's desk and went to shut the door to the office, locking it and drawing the blinds to make sure that absolutely no one could see in, even though they were both pretty sure that they were alone in the building.  He pulled his phone out of his pocket and mumbled to himself as he pointed it at the security camera in the ceiling, and then smirked over his shoulder once the green light on it turned into a flashing red light.  
  
"Oops.  Technical malfunction," he teased softly, and then purposefully walked back over to Jim and stood behind him.  With his one good arm, he wrapped Jim in a tight hug, leaning down over the back of his desk chair and resting his forehead against the back of Jim's head.  The simple fact that Tony - Mr. Act First and Think Much, Much Later - had just gone to the trouble of making sure that absolutely no one could see him like this... Jim felt a tingle in his sinuses and his eyes burned a little.  Not tears, just...  
  
He closed his eyes and one of the not-tears slipped down his cheek.  He reached up and held onto Tony's arm where it crossed his chest, one hand at his elbow and one at his wrist; he kept him locked there, feeling his warmth, his weight against his back, the reality of the fact that Tony was _back_ , Tony was _there_ , Tony was _alive_ and _okay_ and _safe_ and right behind him.  He kept hanging on as if he were drowning, clinging, silent and desperate and behind his eyelids he was back in the desert, running through deep soft sand, falling to his knees in front of his best friend, burned, bloody, and battered, voice cracking as he dragged Tony into a tight hug.  
  
He refused to crack now, even if he knew that he could.  He refused to cry, even though he wanted to.  He wanted to stay strong so that Tony could lean on him if he needed to.  
  
They stayed like that for the better part of five or ten minutes, Tony uncharacteristically silent while Jim worked on keeping his composure, taking deep breaths, grounding himself and matching the puffs of Tony's warm breath against his neck.  Eventually, very reluctantly, Jim let go of Tony's arm and turned in his chair to flash him a silent thanks written in a soft smile and grateful eyes.  Tony winced as he straightened his stiff back, and Jim mirrored it sympathetically.  "Sorry," he offered, and, “Thanks.”  
  
Tony held out his left hand to pull Jim out of the chair, shaking his head as he wrapped him in a real hug from the front.  His left arm slipped around Jim’s waist and squeezed, and Jim’s arms folded around his back, holding him tight.  "No, I'm sorry," Tony whispered, and Jim heard him let out a shaky breath, felt it against his ear, and when he spoke again, it was higher, unstrung, wobbly.  "I'm sorry,” he repeated.  “I know that you... if you blamed yourself for... I don’t want you to.  Okay?”  His voice cracked as he stuttered, trying to figure out how to say what he wanted to say.    
  
One of Jim’s hands brushed reassuringly down his back and up again, a slow, calming, rhythmic motion.  “Stop, Tones,” he whispered.  “You’ve got it bad enough without the ‘what ifs’, okay?”  
  
Tony pulled back enough to look into his eyes, and Jim saw himself reflected in a hazel sea of guilt.  “If you had been in the, heh, the Funvee... you wouldn’t have... they were all so _young_ , Rhodey.  They were _so_ fucking young.  And then that stupid gun jammed, and I saw you, and then I, I ran, and... and the fucking missile, _my_ fucking missile...”  He squeezed his eyes closed and rested his cheek on Jim's shoulder.  "When I woke up, I thought you were dead," he whispered.  "For three months, I thought... I had no way to find out..."  
  
Jim couldn't imagine what was flashing behind his best friend's closed eyelids, but he knew Tony, and he knew what Tony needed, and he kept hanging on, squeezing him tight.  He shook his head, nestling it into the crook of Tony's neck as he whispered, "It's okay," and, "You didn't do anything wrong," and, "I’m right here."  
  
He ran his fingers through the curled hair at the nape of Tony's neck, massaged the muscles at the base of his skull.  He remembered the very first time that Tony had broken down like this, two years out of MIT and Obie showed up at a bar that Tony had just bought to tell him that his parents had died.  Tony threw everyone out, Obie included, and sobbed into Jim's shirt between shots about how he felt guilty about not being sad, told him he wasn't ready to take over the company, confessed that this was the third bar that he'd try to buy and each one of them ended up bankrupt and worthless.  He’d said he wished that Jim had never left for basic training.   _"I suck as a person, Rhodey, except when you're with me."_  
  
Tony wasn't crying now, though; he wasn't even shaking, he was just still, he was silent, and when Jim pulled back enough to look at him, he looked lost and shell-shocked and empty and guilty and heartbroken.  Suddenly Jim remembered the press conference; Tony's words, and the idea that Tony had seen his own fellow Americans killed by anything that had the Stark Industries logo flashing along the side of it made Jim feel sick.  He pressed a kiss against Tony's temple, a rush of protectiveness coming over him. His murmured reassurances changed from 'you didn't do anything wrong' to, "You didn't know," and after the third or fourth time that he said it, it was like somebody cut the strings and the marionette that was Tony Stark collapsed against him, boneless and heavy.   
  
Now he _was_ shaking, and _now_ Jim felt a drop of moisture hit his cheek where it was pressed against Tony's jaw, and he felt Tony's lips moving against his neck, whispering apologies to people that would never hear them as he held on.  
  
Standing there in his office behind his desk, swaying to arhythm that neither of them could hear with Tony wrapped around him, he made soft shushing noises into Tony’s hair as Tony let it go, words coming wet and sorrowful against Jim's neck as if they were being squeezed out of him, high-pitched and choked, repetitions of, "I should have known," and, "They didn't deserve to die like that," and "What can I do?"  
  
Jim's phone buzzed.  Fifteen minutes until the ceremony.  Jim didn't move, he didn't even care about the stupid medal, but Tony pulled away from him, wiping his face on his sleeve and taking deep, calming breaths.  "We okay?" Jim asked, tugging on the lapels of Tony's jacket to straighten them out again.  Tony's eyes closed briefly, and when he opened them, they were smiling.  Only barely, but smiling, and Jim smiled back.  
  
"Think so," Tony replied.  
  
"Ready to watch while I get lauded for saving your ass?"  
  
Tony laughed and ducked his head while he quickly undid and then re-tied Jim’s tie, his restless hands and tapping toes making him seem like he was just Tony, the same Tony that had always been bouncing off the walls and coming up with dumb ideas that were actually brilliant ideas if you stuck with him long enough to get past the dumb parts. For a second, just a second, it felt as if they hadn't just broken the surface of what it meant to almost lose each other.  "Yeah," he answered, and his hand lingered over Jim's heart for the space of a beat.  Jim’s came up to cover it, squeezing his fingers and swallowing past a lump in his throat.    
  
They were both drowning men.  
  
But they had one another to cling to.


End file.
